A Walk in the Dark
by Joermungard
Summary: Alice can't sleep, so she goes for a walk in the park to clear her mind - she didn't count on meeting anyone there though! All human, rated T for safety.


**Disclaimer: I'm not Stephenie Meyer, I don't own Twilight, and I'm not making money out of this. I'm just borrowing some characters for some harmless fun ;)**

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I turned over and tugged at the blanket, pulling it over my head. Too warm, too little oxygen. I pulled it back off and turned the other way, curling up into a ball – that didn't feel right either. Rolling onto my stomach, I buried my face in the pillow and shut my eyes tight – but then the images invaded my head again, and my eyes flew open without my permission. I tossed around some more, tried thinking very hard of a story, or a song, or a new pattern for my collection, but the faces flooded my brain the moment I slacked in my concentration, brutally shaking me awake as soon as I was nodding off. It was infuriating, exasperating, enough to drive a saint crazy. Why couldn't I just be done? It had been so long, why couldn't I just be done thinking about it, why couldn't their faces stop ricocheting around my mind? It should all be long over and forgotten, she was dead to me, I would never see her again, and there really was no point whatsoever in remembering. And yet, I kept drifting back to it, to that afternoon last summer, when she'd told me about it, when I'd lost my sister to falsehoods and secrecy.

_ "Alice, I have to admit something to you... I wanted to tell you before, but I couldn't, and it's killing me. I've been seeing James..."_

_ "James? You've been sleeping with James? My James?"_

_ "Yes. I'm sorry, I really wanted to tell you."_

_ "You've been fucking the one person I ever really loved in this whole goddamn world behind my back?"_

_ "Yes." _

_ "Why?"_

_ "He's attractive... he's hard to resist when he puts his mind to it."_

_ "I loved him. I always loved him, and you knew it. And you've been spreading your legs for him like some slut just because you couldn't say no?"_

_ "Yes. But it's over now. I'm so sorry."_

_ "It's over? You've been going behind my back with this, looking into my eyes every day pretending to be in love with that guy from Louisiana, and now that it's over, you're telling me you've been screwing the man I was hoping to marry one day?"_

_ "I thought you deserved the truth. I didn't want you to find out from someone else."_

_ "Bullshit. All you wanted to do is save your own ass. Don't pretend you were doing this for me, Vic. You're just telling me so you can make yourself believe you've been a good, honest girl. Go home, Victoria. You wouldn't know the truth if it came and bit you between your whore legs."_

I wanted to bang my head against the wall. There it was again, the play-by-play of that conversation, nearly a year ago. When Victoria, my best friend in the whole wide world since kindergarden, had told me she'd been seeing James, the ex-boyfriend I had been trying to win back for more than two years. Of course, I'd known he was attracted to her. But she'd said she'd never do it, and I'd believed her. What a goddamn fool I'd been. I hated her for sleeping with him, but even more, I hated her for having done it secretly, and for having encouraged me all along in my attempts to woo him back. Once upon a time, we'd sworn never to keep secrets from each other. Apparently, I'd been the only one who kept to that agreement.

Even though it had been nearly a year since then, I still lay awake some nights, with her face floating in my mind's eye. She'd said then that it was over between them, but that had only been half the truth, as I knew now. They'd ended the casual sex thing, in favour of starting an actual relationship a few months later. It made me sick, thinking of her and him together – he'd broken up with me, and yet here he was, dating her, who was almost a copy of me. In a way, I shouldn't have been surprised – she'd always had to have what I had, same mp3-player, same computer, same university, we'd even had crushes on the same guys back in high school. That she'd take the man I'd wanted to spend my life with shouldn't really have been such a leap of faith. I'd just been too blind to see what everybody else in this stinking little town had seen, because I couldn't imagine that Vic would do such a thing. Sisters don't treat sisters like that. So the sisterhood was dissolved, she'd moved away to be with him at his new job, and I was left behind to contemplate my fate as a frustrated spinster.

I gave up on sleep, threw off the blanket and got back up. My jogging pants were lying ready for my morning run, I might as well take it now, in the hopes that it would numb me enough to put me under when I got back. I shrugged into my sweatshirt and glanced at the clock before heading out of the door – it was almost two in the morning. That meant I'd spent the last three hours trying to fall asleep, with her face before my unseeing eyes.

I never saw _his_ face in my mind. Her revelation had just confirmed what I'd known in my heart for a while – that it was pointless to pine for him any longer. It had almost been a relief to be done with that, to know that there really was no hope for me and him. But my heart still felt like there was a hole where _she_'d been – I didn't want her back, couldn't imagine going back after what had happened, yet I still missed her insanely. I wanted the Victoria I'd known before, but I suspected that that girl might never have existed in the first place. There was no going back to the way it had been _before_.

The door creaked, as usual, and I had to slam it shut as always because otherwise the wind would force it open again. For a minute, I just stood there, breathing in the night air. Spring was really coming now, after this long, hard winter that had never seemed to end. I could feel it in every fibre and every bone of my body. The very air told me – it sucked all the harsh thoughts from my brain and made pleasant ones blossom in their place. I opened my mouth so that I could take in as much air as I could, and it _tasted_ of spring – of freshly turned earth and growing leaves, of lawns overflowing with crocuses and lady's slipper orchids tucked away in woods, it tasted of birdsong and evenings at the lake and of things being born. It _felt_ different, too – it had lost its icy winter sharpness and become soft like velvet. A small gust of wind felt like a thousand little hands caressing my face, and crept into my sweater as if it were trying to see if it could lift me up.

I pushed up the sleeves to feel as much of that air as possible, and started jogging towards the park. For a moment I wondered whether it was a good idea to go into a dark park like that in the middle of the night, but it didn't seem likely that anyone would be out at this time of night, in the middle of the week, this early in the year. Most people wouldn't even know spring was coming yet.

The park lay silent and still, and I imagined that most would find it threatening. I'd never really understood why though – a park lying sleeping and empty in the dark could harm no-one. As far as I was concerned, it was more peaceful than anything else. I slowed to a walk so I wouldn't trip on the dark paths, and contemplated the river flowing past. It reminded me of nights I'd sat here with Vic, and that memory didn't hurt as much as the others did, maybe because it was from a time long before James had appeared in our lives, long before everything had gone awry. Most people thought I was overreacting, and told me that it was stupid to throw away a friendship over some guy. Most of the time, I sort of agreed with them – if I were a better person, I'd be able to get over it, forgive and forget and all that. Unfortunately, I was just myself, and I wasn't over it, though not for lack of trying.

I ambled over to the bank of the river, and suddenly found myself flailing and crashing towards the ground, only to land, not on grass, but on something soft and warm and very human.

"Oh dear, I'm sorry! I thought you saw me and were coming over, I didn't realise you couldn't see me! I'm so sorry!" The man jumped up and pulled me back onto my feet, all the time continuing to apologise profusely in his slightly drawling southern voice.

"It's ok, I wasn't watching where I was going. I should be the one apologising for disturbing you, I didn't realise someone, uh... lived here."

His answering laugh was soft as honey. "God, no, I'm not homeless. I don't live here or anything, I just came here to think. Sorry if I scared you"

Suddenly, I was very, very thankful that it was dark, so he couldn't see me blushing scarlet. "Gosh, I'm sorry. Mortified, actually. I just kind of assumed that nobody apart from me would be here recreationally at this time of night."

"Oh, don't worry about it. How about we quit the whole apologising thing? I'm Jasper, by the way." His hand found mine and shook it briefly. His skin felt smooth and cool, and I found myself missing the contact when it was gone – it had been a long time since a man had touched me.

"I'm Alice. Do you mind if I join you?"

"Not at all. Here, have a seat on my jacket, the ground is kind of damp." He took my hand again and guided me towards it, but let go again as soon as I was sitting.

"Thanks."

"So Alice. What sort of recreational purpose brings you to this park this late at night, if you don't mind my asking?" His accent was definitely southern. I was almost surprised that I didn't know him – anyone knows everyone in Forks, a man with a southern drawl wouldn't usually go unnoticed.

"I couldn't sleep. I, um, kept thinking about things, so I decided to go for a run to tire myself out, and then I sort of got caught up in the way the air tastes and the wind feels and stuff..." I trailed off, embarrassed. I sounded like a lunatic. "I mean... it's nice outside. Spring is coming" I finished lamely.

He chuckled. "I know what you mean, Alice. This night smells of grass and water and growing things. It reminds me of summer camps and working in the fields and stargazing with friends."

"Wow. I've never met anyone else who has associations with air. Most people think I'm crazy when I say that the scent of a room reminds me of a person, or that a street smells like home."

"I know what you mean" he repeated.

There was a short silence – it didn't feel uncomfortable to me, but I wasn't sure about him, so I broke it before it could stretch out too long. "So how about you, Jasper? What are you doing here, sitting around alone in the grass in the dark?"

"Same as you are. Escaping unwanted thoughts. I find the wind very helpful, it clears out the cobwebs. Blows away memories that I'd rather forget." For a moment, I wondered whether he was a figment of my imagination. Could there really be a man that didn't just share my sensual connection with the atmosphere, but who let the wind wash away his thoughts just the way I did? Nobody had ever understood that, the way that air rushing past me could tell me a story and make me forget my own petty problems.

"At the risk of sounding repetitive... I've never met anyone else who feels about the wind that way. I mean, the 'clears your thoughts' way. Gives me hope that maybe I'm not that weird after all."

"Or maybe -" he hesitated. The moon came out from behind a cloud, and I could see his face clearly for the first time. It was a landscape of scars, but he didn't look scary at all – he looked as if he'd lived through things much worse than my little troubles with Vic. "Maybe it's fate" he finally mumbled. He was looking straight at me, and I found myself smiling as I slipped my hand into his.

"You've kept me waiting a long time" I said.

His answering smile was full of relief, and he ducked his head slightly without breaking eye contact. "I'm sorry, ma'am."

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**A/N - I couldn't sleep, so I wrote this ;) - I hope you liked it! And remember: Reviews are love, people!**


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